


Ever After

by ArchangelUnmei



Series: After All Things [1]
Category: Cardcaptor Sakura, xxxHoLic
Genre: Afterlife, Community: 31_days, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-02
Updated: 2010-10-02
Packaged: 2017-10-12 08:49:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArchangelUnmei/pseuds/ArchangelUnmei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This isn't quite how she was expecting to meet him again...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ever After

**Author's Note:**

> June 29, 2009 ~ _You don't know what it's been like, meeting someone like you._
> 
> Hints of Yuuko/Clow if you want to read it that way.

The afterlife wasn't quite what she expected.

If she was honest with herself, she'd never really thought that there was anything after death, unless you were reincarnated. That was a special case. But when you were dead, you were Dead, and there would be nothing else. She'd never really subscribed to the idea of streets of gold or endless fields of wheat or seventy-two virgins or whatever the definition of 'heaven' was today. Though she wouldn't have said no to the virgins.

So it was something of a mild shock when she came aware again (she couldn't really say she woke up) to find herself sitting under a sakura tree in bloom.

Wonderful. The afterlife had irony.

For awhile she just sat there, idly looking up at the blooms and leaves and the cloudless blue sky. There wasn't really any reason to move, after all. She had forever to explore the place, if she ever decided to explore at all.

She didn't really think about much of anything. There wasn't anything to think about. She wasn't worried, she knew Watanuki would keep his promise, and that Sakura and Syaoran would make it out the other side of their destiny. It was hitsuzen, after all. And he'd said so.

Him.

Clow.

Yuuko sat up, and finally noticed what she was wearing. She couldn't help but smirk a little. If this was heaven, at least it was letting her keep her fashion sense. She was dressed in one of the few Western dresses she owned, all scarlet silk and black lace with her usual butterfly motif embroidered on. She brushed a few blades of grass off the hem and stood, looking around this place she found herself in.

She realized, suddenly, that she knew this place. The trees were all in the right places, and in front of her feet lay a neat path made of broken white shells and gravel. It led away between the bushes and trees, and she didn't have to follow it to know where it went.

She stood in indecision, wondering why her heaven had taken the form of this place she'd known so long ago. But if she was honest, this was one of the places she'd been the happiest in her long life, so maybe it wasn't that much of a surprise. After a long minute, she placed one high-heeled foot onto the path, and followed it.

Just as she'd known it would, the path led her through an orchard (though, unlike when she'd been here before, everything was blooming and bearing fruit all at once, oranges and apples and pears and pomegranates) and then through a rose garden (again, all in bloom). She looked up, and she could see the roof of the house, just as she'd known she would be able to.

It was oddly quiet, though. No sounds of cars or people outside of the garden walls, no sound of the ocean which she should have been able to hear. This wasn't really his house in Hong Kong, then, just a heavenly copy. That wasn't a surprise.

But then a breeze blew by, lifting her hair off her back like a cape, and she caught the sound of music on the wind.

Abandoning her dignity (why cling to it, in this place?) she took off at a run. She left her shoes somewhere in the garden, felt the bits of shell in the pathway sting her feet until she jumped up onto the wooden porch instead. Two steps across it, and then she was throwing open the door, the music suddenly clearer.

She'd always admired the house, loved the way it seamlessly blended Eastern Feng Shui with Western designs, as unique as the man who'd made it. She'd loved the wooden floors and the Western hinged doors, the abundance of windows that let in the light. She'd loved the high ceiling in the library, and the chandeliers in the dining room. But she didn't notice any of that now, didn't notice how quiet it was without Cerberus breaking things and Yue yelling at him, without Soel and Larg to add to the chaos.

All she heard was the music, as she followed it down the hall, catching the carved banister to swing herself around as she clattered up the stairs. She had to be making a racket, but the music never stopped, drawing her on down the familiar hallway until she arrived at the closed door of his study. She stopped then, panting for breath, hair hanging loose around her.

For a long minute she stood, catching her breath and gathering her courage, listening to the piano. Then, before she lost her nerve, she threw open the door and stepped in, lifting her chin proudly despite her grass stained bare feet.

Clow kept playing for a few more bars, then let the music fade and turned to face her. He smiled, looking as eternally young as he always had, that bastard.

"Welcome home, Yuuko."


End file.
